「At the very least, I haven’t seen her enjoy a meal like this for a long time.」
Hearing Layotte say so, Aearis sulked her head with guilt. It occurred to her that she was acting as if eating with the party here was more enjoyable than eating with Layotte and Elena.
「Aearis, you haven’t done anything wrong. Chin up. We’re not accosting you of anything. In fact, we are the ones who owe you an apology.」
「No one could blame you for losing interest in food sitting at our dinner table. It was our fault for not being able to do anything about Katrina. I never saw it as some family bonding time. I would be surprised if you did.」
Layotte and Elena rushed to console Aearis. But the fact that Aearis had enjoyed her meals here (with people she had just met, relatively speaking) more than the meals she had with the siblings she loved seemed to hit her hard. She kept looking down at her lap, her shoulders quivering.
「Y’know, Elle.」
「…Yes…?」
「What’s it been, about a month? Since ya had supper with your brother and sister. Did you have fun tonight?」
「…A lot of fun…」
「More than the last ten dinners or so ya had here?」
「…Tonight was so, so much more fun…」
「Then it ain’t a problem.」
Hiroshi dismissed, and Aearis lifted her chin. When their eyes met, Hiroshi took his face (not ugly, per say, but definitely not good-looking) and crinkled it into a (again, not handsome by any means, but loveable) grin. Seeing this, Aearis couldn’t help but crack a little smile herself, albeit still teary-eyed.
「Hey, Lay.」
「What is it?」
「If ya can, pop by more often. Won’t ya? It won’t be all fancy shmancy, but we’ll always make somethin’ tasty.」
「…Of course. I’ll have to check on Elena as well. I’ll come by as often as I can. Soon, I’ll bring Avin and Mark. We would love to have something unique as this dish. 」
「No problem. Actually, our next few dinners may by Wyvern… We still have a lot of it left over.」
Layotte gave a little chuckle to Haruna’s remark. They did take apart a flying lizard that spanned over 10 meters, after all. Naturally, a single dinner for a dozen people wouldn’t put a dent in the supply.
「You’re in charge. As long as it tastes good, we won’t complain. And if you have leftovers, do you mind if I take some with me? I would love to have some over a drink with Father and Avin.」
「Okie dokie. We have all sorts of ingredients other than Wyvern when it comes to unique dishes. Don’t be afraid to look forward to it.」
With a chuckling snort in response to Haruna, Layotte patted Aearis on the head gently, and returned to the castle with a transportation spell, the package of fried meat in hand.
「Okay. Now that we’ve had dessert, let me clean up and we’ll take a bath together.」
「That sounds wonderful. Thank you for wiping me down yesterday, but I’m feeling well enough to join you today. It’s been a long time since I’ve taken a bath with Aearis, too.」
「I’ll get these cleaned up in a jiffy, then.」
「Oh, I got it.」
Hiroshi offered. He still had a lot of work to do like putting on the finishing touches to the armor pieces and preparing more medicine before he would get a chance to take a bath. The bath itself had already been drawn by Rayna. Because of how often they found themselves sweaty from training, bathes were usually drawn by either Douga or Rayna.
「If you don’t mind.」
「Not at all. I got some work to do in the kitchen too, so don’t worry ‘bout it.」
「Okay. Thanks!」
After watching the girls retreat to their rooms, Hiroshi gathered the dishes and went back into the kitchen. While women coming out of the bath could be lethal for Hiroshi, he had developed some immunity through his cohabitation with Haruna began a month and a half ago.
「Now, I could whip up some post-bath fruity latte.」
「You really do think of everything.」
Douga noted with exasperation as he watched Hiroshi poor 8 1/2 parts milk, 1 part fruit, and some other ingredients (like sugar) into a blender-like contraption.
「Finally, we can eat…」
「So many.」
「Jeez. A horde of these buggers can be a real chore. 」
The three of them mumbled with exasperation after cleaning up the piles upon piles of weaklings. They weren’t too far from a main road, and yet a surprising amount of them had attacked the party. Most of them weren’t edible and offered no materials worth the effort, which resulted in Tatsuya burning off the corpses after chopping off a body part from each as proof of their encounter. They only took apart those that were tasty, had highly valued hide or skin, and those with insides that could be turned into materials or crafting. Even still, the process taken them a long time. Even though Makoto had slaughtered nearly half of them with a single blow, it had left the three of them rather exhausted.
「Hey, Makoto.」
Tatsuya said.
「What?」
「You’ve ever come around these parts… In this world?」
「A couple times for quests. You want to know if there were so darn many of them last time? Not even close.」
Tatsuya let out a frown in response. They had set up a monster-repellent barrier, which would keep them safe until the next morning, but something still didn’t sit right with Tatsuya.
「Something bugging you?」
「Hmm… How I should I put this… When we saw the Wyvern yesterday, Mio said that it seemed more afflicted, remember?」
「Mm-hm. It feels the same around here, Tatsu.」
「I thought so. What I’m trying to say is that we shouldn’t encounter a Wyvern this far down the mountain. At least, in the game, we never saw one outside an event unless we climbed way up the mountain.」
「I remember that.」
The Wyvern were powerful monsters, but for some reason didn’t come down off of the mountains. Most formidable monsters had a small range of habitat, away from any ordinary wildlife.
Of course, this was partially due to the fact that both humans and animals avoided living near the habitat of said terrifying monsters. However, the way that most fearsome monsters kept to their specific habitat was as if there were invisible barriers that only applied to them. In addition, most of said creatures lived under extremely harsh conditions, under which humans could barely live if they tried.
「Remember the robbers we were captured by? Didn’t they start to control monsters that weren’t native to the area using a monster-controlling orb or something? To separate their targets from the bodyguards in order to take them into human trafficking.」
「That’s what I’ve heard.」
Makoto confirmed.
「Hiro and I were talking about this, too. Isn’t it weird?」
「…It is, come to think about it.」
「I wouldn’t say they were third-rate, but they were definitely not up to snuff. We were in such a state of confusion back then, but we could take them down barehanded, now. You really think they could afford a monster-controlling orb?」
Makoto gave a half shrug in response to Tatsuya’s question. Tatsuya chimed in with a chuckling sigh and a nod.
「Tatsu.」
「What’s up?」
「I’m hungry.」
Mio declared, after listening in on the conversation without much interest. The sun had nearly set, and it was passed their usual dinner time. Perhaps because (unlike in Japan) she could eat all sorts of food on her own, Mio’s obsession for food was comparable to that of Aearis’.
「You’re right. It’s no use speculating this and that when we don’t have all the pieces.」
「I agree. Besides, I have a feeling the big bad boss is going to be as cliché as we think it will.」
「Yeah.」
With a nod, Tatsuya began looking for their dinner, which they assumed were prepared by Haruna.
「…Fried Wyvern thighs, huh…?」
「With tartar sauce.」
「Fried meat and tartar sauce. What do you think?」
「I’ve had some lunches like that. I don’t think it’s weird.」
Tatsuya and Makoto chatted as they produced their dinner.
「In any case…」
「What?」
「I think it’s culinary genius to turn a flying lizard into what’s essentially fried chicken.」
Makoto and Mio nearly did a spit-take at this. There was nothing funny about the remark, really. It must have been the delivery.
「Speaking of, didn’t something like Wyvern meat require a really high skill experience to cook?」
「I can’t remember. I know there weren’t too many chefs with their Cooking level over 300. It’s not like they were hermits like the craftsmen.」
「Anyway, at our level, skill experience in Cooking doesn’t mean much.」
Mio interjected.
「Guess you’re right.」
Tatsuya conceded. In actuality, the difference in a player’s Cooking experience was only noticeable until it reached 50 (not accounting for any modifiers). After that, experience would not go to waste, the change wouldn’t be noticeable in the dishes the player made. Even now, when they couldn’t see their exact stats, it was doubtful that there was much difference in this department. Of course, once an attribute surpassed the 50 benchmark, the change in stats were barely noticeable save through the automatic distribution while levelling up.
「But boy, does it look good.」
「You said it. I can’t believe this came from that flying reptile.」
Tatsuya and Makoto mentioned their thoughts as they produced a table and a set of plates from their bags, onto which they served the fried meat. They twisted open the thermos containing corn soup, and served it into mugs before setting the table with them, along with bread and salad. In the end, they were looking at a spectacular dinner table that looked too good to belong in a camp. If other adventurers had been here, they would be wide-eyed, jaws-on-the-ground at the beauty of this meal, and lose sleep over it.
「Well, thank you for this meal.」
「Thank you for this meal.」
Beside Tatsuya and Mio saying so, Makoto had swiftly reached for the fried meat. She was the one who endured the most physical labor out of the three of them. Her appetite far outweighed her patience at this point.
「Mm, it’s so good!」
「For real, these are great.」
「I’m happy.」
The meat stayed warm, thanks to the proper container (with enchantments, of course). Losing control, the three of them sang praises for the food with their mouths full. Unfortunately the hike ahead of them would have made it too dangerous, Tatsuya and Makoto only need a chilled glass of beer to call this a perfect meal.